Pages

11/09/2011

Missionary Man (2007)

Missionary Man (2007)-* *

Directed by: Dolph Lundgren

Starring: Dolph Lundgren, Matthew Tompkins, and John Enos III

Ryder (Dolph) is a mysterious man
on a motorcycle who rides into a dusty ol’ southwestern town. Knowing
only that he always carries his bible around, and that he likes tequila,
be befriends a family of Native Americans, but makes enemies with the
local (and prerequisite) evil land baron, Reno
(Tompkins), and his goons. Reno even tries to get some bikers to take
Ryder down, led by the charismatic Jarfe (Enos III). Reno wants to take the
land from the Indians (if you can still call them that?) and build his
own casino. But Ryder doesn’t approve of his ruthless, murdering
tactics, so he deals with them the only way they understand: with some
shotgun justice! Will Ryder rip the bolo ties off this new crop of
middle-aged punks?

The idea of Dolph
as a preacher on a motorcycle who comes to clean up a town
sounds good on paper. And in some ways it does work. But this rehashed
plot is nothing new, and it lacks a certain verve. Taking liberally from
Pale Rider (1985), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976),
Billy Jack (1971) and Walking Tall, 1973 (to name a few obvious examples), thanks to
some boring, talky bits and some weak, jerky, short fight scenes, a lot
was left to be desired from these “Dolphings With Wolves”.

We
don’t want to go too hard here, as there are some cool parts herein.
John Enos III of Bullet (1996) and Stealth Fighter (1999) fame unquestionably steals the
movie as Jarfe. He only shows up towards the end, but he should have
been the main villain instead of Reno. As stated earlier, Missionary Man
boasts a cool concept, but it’s just so derivative, it becomes hard to
be invested. To overcome this, there should have been more excitement
and edge. The movie needed a literal and figurative punch-up.

And
it doesn’t hurt that the colors on the DVD are all weird.
Supposedly there were some technical issues that weren’t resolved in
time, so the movie has a washed-out, grainy look that doesn’t do it any
favors. But if you always wanted to see Dolph instead of Lamas in an
episode of “Renegade”, here you go. Plus Lamas’ name in “Renegade” is
Reno Raines, and the baddie here is named Reno. Coincidence?

But
there’s no denying Dolph is cool, and his CSI-like trading of his
sunglasses for granny-style reading glasses is a nice touch. But his
coolness alone isn’t enough to overcome the flaws of Missionary Man. The
bottom line is the Missionary Man concept should have gotten a better
execution.

Yes, it’s run-of-the-mill plotwise, but there are
some definite standout moments. It’s tough, but we just can’t put our
full blessing behind Missionary Man.

14 comments:

I completely agree. It was such a cool concept. The mysterious figure comes into town shooting guns and reading the bible. But it was so slow and had way too many scenes of endless dialogue and not nearly enough action. And the action that was there was nothing to get excited about. One of the bigger missed opportunities in his career for sure.

For the most part this one was really dull for me and like you said the grainy look got pretty annoying, the Walking Tall remake had almost the exact same plot as this film and did it much better. For me the worst sin an action film can commit is being boring, which this film has in spades(at least Cyborg, Detention and US:The Return were never boring in the least)This film does have some nice kills and is certainly better then Pentathlon and Final Inquiry, but that's about the only nice things I can say about it(John Enos was OK, but he showed up too late in the film to make much of an impression)

RobotGEEK: Your comment is so true! The potential was there but it wasn't fulfilled.

Videovacuum: Can't agree more! Sepia tone could be cool but it wasn't supposed to look like that. It was so sort of glitch in the post-production.

Venom: We agree with your comment 100%. The movie definitely needed more Jarfe. This movie didn't have to be boring at all. This is Dolph we're talking about here! It should have been a big battle between Enos III and Dolph.

What I loved about this one was, plot-wise, it was pretty much a group of thugs driving around in a pick-up truck and cornering Dolph, and him beating the crap out of them. The Dolph directorial film effects were a little much, but otherwise this was a fun Dolph time. Also agree on Enos.